It’s easy to say that moms are stressed. They have a lot to take care of. They’ve also got their hands full with the obligations that come along with motherhood.
Moms can never catch a break! There are no sick days or moments of silence. They’re always needed for one thing or another.
Most people would think that moms with more kids are more stressed out. If you have one kid, you shouldn’t have as much to worry about as a mom with five kids, right? This is a common assumption.
With more kids, moms just have more to do. That’s extra practices to drive kids to and more school lunches to pack. It just makes sense for moms with lots of kids to be stressed out.
We were wrong!
It’s been discovered that this is a misconception. Moms being stressed out doesn’t work the way we might think. Having more kids doesn’t necessarily make a mom more stressed out.
In 2013, TODAY Parents conducted a study to learn about parents and why they are stressed out. In this study, which took place in the United States, 7,164 moms were asked to take a survey.
This survey was focused on why parents are stressed, but some more interesting information showed up in the results. This may not have been what the surveyors were looking for.
TODAY Parents asked these moms taking the survey how many kids they had. This ended up being a critical part of a mom’s stress.
Three!
It turns out that moms of three kids experience the most stress. This is compared to moms with one child, two children, or four or more children.
Naturally, moms have a lot to handle when they are trying to take care of three children. It just doesn’t make sense that they would be under more pressure than moms with more than four kids!
It is pretty shocking that the moms who have four or more children aren’t more stressed. As mentioned before, they simply have more on their plates. They should be under a lot of extra stress for that reason alone.
The phenomenon
A psychiatrist, Dr. Janet Taylor, explained the somewhat surprising results of this survey. What happens is that moms of three still have perfectionism on their minds. Many of them want to raise their children in a particular way.
Once a mom has four or more kids, they quickly realize that these perfect goals might be too lofty. This leads moms with more kids to loosen up a bit.
Of course, moms with four or more kids are still good parents! Part of this is because of all of their parenting expertise. They’ve got the experience they need and can take on anything.
It looks like the switch to three kids is the line between perfectionism and learning to go with the flow. This doesn’t necessarily mean that moms have to fit into these two categories at just the right time. It’s just the common pattern.
This study also discovered what stresses moms out. After all, that was the goal of the research!
Stress is stressful!
This is one statistic that most moms out there can probably relate to. Of the 7,164 moms who were surveyed, 72 percent of them were stressed out about their stress. If you’re a mom, you have likely felt this way before!
60 percent of moms were worried about not having enough time each day to get everything done. Again, those moms out there can probably relate!
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Just because moms of three seem to have the most stress, that doesn’t mean that your stressful days aren’t legitimate. Raising kids is tough. Try to relax—maybe once the kids move out!
